The delayed return to offices due to the spread of the Delta variant has been a blow to the retail recovery in Manhattan.
As of this summer, nearly 30 per cent of the storefronts in Manhattan’s two most important “office-dependent” retail corridors — Grand Central area and Midtown East — were vacant, according to a report from the Real Estate Board of New York. (The next highest vacancy rate was on Madison Avenue, at 28.4 per cent.)
“This is significantly higher than the vacancy rate in the surveyed residential neighbourhood in Manhattan and roughly twice as high as the vacancy rates in surveyed residential neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and Queens,” the report stated.
Historically, the Grand Central and Midtown East areas have maintained a retail vacancy rate of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent. In addition to higher vacancy, Grand Central and Midtown East also have many more full-block vacancies and a plethora of corner and flagship opportunities. The vacancy rate for these areas compares to a vacancy rate of 20.9 per cent in a surveyed residential retail corridor (Upper East Side) and 28.4 per cent rate in a surveyed high street retail corridor (Madison Avenue).
